Tag Archives: Bottom Feeder

Charles Whitman was a few weeks past his 25th birthday when he finally snapped. Taking his rifle, he killed 16 people, 3 of them in the tower tower of the University of Texas and 11 more as a sniper in the tower’s observation deck, where he retreated in his final rage. He also wounded 32 other people before he was shot dead by members of the Austin police department.

In the months leading up to his death, Whitman had been court-martialled by the Marines (by whom he had been trained as a sniper), endured his parents’ divorce, and developed both an amphetamine addiction and a headache-inducing brain tumour (the last discovered only at his autopsy)… looking for a motive in his actions is pointless, so many things in his life serving to unabalance him.

His was one of the earliest sniper killing sprees, but sadly, it would not be the last.